U.S. mayors are right, let's rid the world of nuclear weapons: PennLive letters

I praise the U.S. Conference of Mayors for adopting the resolution calling for U.S. leadership in eliminating nuclear weapons from the globe and reducing military spending to meet the needs of cities.

A massive spending of billions of dollars is now underway to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons system. The U.S. remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons, when it bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in August, 1945. Initially, 120,000 people died, and many more died in subsequent years. What horrors to humanity!

Nuclear weapons are a constant threat to our survival globally. Even though the Cold War has ended decades ago, there remain an estimated 17,300 nuclear weapons in the world. Ninety-four percent are in the possession of the US and Russia. Even if a single bomb were used against a new target, it would be a personal and ecological catastrophe.

It's time for the U.S. and Russia to negotiate a meaningful reduction in their nuclear weapons. It's also time for the president and Congress to shift funding from nuclear weapons to civilian purposes such as addessing the needs of or rural and urban communities.